Job Site Asks Recession Victims: How Low Will You Go?

A group of recent college grads based out of Boston have launched a new job hunting site called Jobaphiles where people can bid on how much money — or more importantly, how little — they are willing to be paid for their work. And instead of behind-the-scenes emails, the entire conversation is out in the open resulting in a virtual battle to undercut the competition.

Think of it as an auction site for victims of the recession, where the unemployed can make a few bucks and cash strapped companies can crowdsource cheap labor. But your price is just one factor to get the attention of an employer, along with your resume and portfolio.

The Initially Boston-only site has been operating for several months but has now opened up to postings from across the country. Employers can list positions and job seekers can create profiles and post resumes or portfolios. A ratings systems is also in place for both employers to encourage legitimacy in posts and job seekers to boost their status and reliability for future applications.

The ultimate goal is to one-up the next guy, by building up your reputation, offering to work for less and making a public case as to why you should be chosen.

"It’s meant to create this kind of virtual conversation between employer and the bidders," said CEO Thai Nguyen. "It’s often not the person who bids the lowest that gets the job, it’s the person who is most qualified."

Nguyen says Jobaphiles’ focus is really on short-term freelance work. Some of the posts up now include an iPhone application developer and multiple tutoring positions.

"We’re really seeing this emergence of a gig economy, and so the long term goal of Jobaphiles is to really become a tool that facilitates this gig economy."

Job sites have seen an influx of traffic over the past few months, and a number of new business models have emerged in and because of the recession, including the pop-up site Recessionwire which actually plans to fold when the economy improves.

Nguyen, who is making it his own full time job at the moment (funded only by their own bootstraps and Google AdSense), thinks his site has the potential to benefit both employers and job hunters in the long term — and eventually pick up a stronger revenue model.

"There’s an inherent level of trust in our site and I think that’s something that will be important regardless of what economic state we’re in," he said.